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| Central Florida Prof. Jay D. Jurie, left, and Gary Bledsoe, president, Texas NAACP. |
Rag Radio podcast:
The Rag Blog‘s Jay D. Jurie and
Austin attorney Gary Bledsoe
on the legacy of Trayvon Martin
They discuss the trial, racial profiling, the ‘stand your ground’ laws and gun violence in America, the movement that has grown up in response to the Zimmerman verdict, and President Obama’s call for a ‘conversation’ about race in America.
By Rag Radio | The Rag Blog | July 31, 2013
Jay D. Jurie, who teaches at the University of Central Florida in Sanford, and Austin attorney Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP, discuss issues related to the killing of Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman on Rag Radio, Friday, July 26, 2013.
Rag Radio is a syndicated radio program produced at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.
Listen to or download this episode of Rag Radio here:
On the show, Jurie and Bledsoe discuss the killing of Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman with host Thorne Dreyer. They also address related issues including racial profiling, the “stand your ground” laws and gun violence in America, the movement that has grown up in response to the Zimmerman verdict, and President Obama’s call for a “conversation” about race in America.
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| The NAACP’s Gary Bledsoe in the studios of KOOP-FM, Austin, Texas, Friday, July 26, 2013. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog. |
Jurie, who lives and teaches in Sanford, Florida, site of the killing and the trial, talks about the nature of the community and the history of racism in the area, and Bledsoe also discusses the role played by the NAACP in Florida, Texas, and nationally.
Jay D. Jurie, Ph.D. is an associate professor of public administration and urban and regional planning at the University of Central Florida. Jay, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, is a veteran of SDS at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has long advocated public policies that promote social and environmental justice and economic democracy.
His Rag Blog article, “Trayvon Martin’s Fatal Shortcut,” has been chosen to appear in a special edition of ProudFlesh: New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics and Consciousness. His more recent article, “‘Approved Killing’ in Florida,” addresses parallels between the Trayvon Martin killing and the murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, in 1955.
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| Jay Jurie, third row, at race relations meeting in Sanford, Florida, Oct. 2, 2012 |
Gary Bledsoe is president of the Texas NAACP, a position he has held since 1991. An Austin attorney who specializes in public interest, employment, and civil rights law, Bledsoe has been a member of the National Board of the NAACP since 2003, and currently chairs the organization’s National Criminal Justice Committee.
Bledsoe earned a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was class president in 1976. Gary Bledsoe has received “lawyer of the year” awards from the Texas Attorney General, the Travis County Bar Association, the Austin and national NAACP, and the Austin Area Urban League.
Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement.
The show has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA.
The show is streamed live on the web by both stations and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.
Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Tracey Schulz is the show’s engineer and co-producer.
Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.
Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, August 2, 2013: Linda Litowsky and Stefan Wray of ChannelAustin on the historic significance of public access television.
Friday, August 9, 2013: We continue our discussion with sociologist, author, and New Left pioneer Todd Gitlin.
